Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 12.10 Elevator Action — With a band name that simultaneously recalls images of the great 80s arcade game and Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler circa Pump, what’s not to like? Consisting of Eric Gilstrap (ex-Borghal Rantipole), Laurie Ruroden (ex-Tokyo Machine) and Gary Guthrie (ex-Leisure McCorkle), EA are Charlotte’s musical sweet tooth: equal parts Supergrass, the…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: I realize I’m probably writing to the wrong place to air this grievance, given that karma isn’t exactly a Christian idea per se, but I feel like this has to be said. To all you Christians who feel the need to tell me “Merry Christmas,” well, save it. I’m Jewish. In fact,…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Dec. 10 Baoding Robert Fernandez Big Al’s Pub, Cornelius Jes & Sherry Blue Carl DiPonziano Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Comet Grill Open Mic w/ Bill McDonald Cuvee Wine & Art Gallery Scott McCloud Group Double Door Inn Lilley, Strauss & Schigoda The Evening Muse An Eclectic Christmas: Shana Blake, John Dungan, Reeve…
See & Do
DECEMBER 10 – WEDNESDAY Actor’s Theatre production of David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries, his acclaimed piece about working as an elf at Macy’s during the holidays. Continues today through December 13, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, at Theatre Charlotte on Queens Road. Tickets are $17-22, call 704-342-2251 or buy online at…
MIA DVDs
Errol Flynn’s immortal The Adventures of Robin Hood finally made it. So did the collected exploits of Indiana Jones. As for the original Star Wars trilogy, they continue to reside in the recesses of George Lucas’ mind, in a galaxy far, far away. With the explosive advent of the DVD home entertainment format — this…
Ask the Advice Goddess
Chased Makes Waste I’m 33, and perpetually single. When I date a man, I like to wine him, dine him, and give him gifts, but my efforts are never appreciated or returned in kind. In fact, I’m usually stood up, and left feeling heartbroken and used. What am I doing wrong? –Nice Girl Finishing Last…
View From The Couch
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (2003) Broad comic turns rarely score Oscar nominations, yet Johnny Depp clearly deserves to be in the running for his inspired work in this summer blockbuster that emerged second only to Finding Nemo in the box office race. Aided by the scripters of Shrek and…
Film Clips
CURRENT RELEASES BAD SANTA Bad Santa may be rude, disgusting and offensive, but I laughed plenty of times, which is something I can’t say I did during those sucky Santa Clause flicks. A perfectly cast Billy Bob Thornton stars as a lifelong loser who dons the red suit annually to play a department store Santa,…
Stargazer
For All Signs It is unusual to consider Mars’ change of signs to be the most notable of the week because it normally moves to a new sign every 7 or 8 weeks. But this year has been extraordinary in that Mars has been in the sign of Pisces since mid-June, moving slowly, forward and…
The Wright Stuff
One thing you have to say about the Wright brothers. They were a little weird. OK, “iconoclastic,” let’s say. You have to admit it’s a bit peculiar, even crazy, for a couple of guys in a bike shop — who had no college education and little apparent social life, who never married and lived with…
Rep Gives Up Their Porsche
Hang on tight, theater lovers, the rollercoaster of Charlotte Repertory Theatre’s internal politics is throwing us for another loop. You can bet there are more new twists straight ahead. The scenario for the current upheaval began when the final tallies on income from Rep’s season opener, Pump Boys and Dinettes, began making their way onto…
Wings Over North Carolina
If it’s important enough to be the sole slogan on the state’s license plates, it’s probably important enough to be in some history book about the state. But the flight of Wilbur and Orville Wright wasn’t important enough to make a well-regarded history of North Carolina published in 1906. The Wrights also didn’t make it…
Gone With The Wassail
You won’t find most of the usual Yuletide suspects and motifs in playwright Stan Peal’s seasonal celebration at SouthEnd Performing Arts Center. No decorated Christmas trees, no chucklesome Santas, no eggnog, no materialists in sore need of Meaning In Their Lives, and no uplifting miracles. Not even an adorable child. Or a crutch! Instead, A…
Smoked Out
With the December 26 deadline fast approaching, members of the Charlotte City Council are asking for more information before deciding what — if anything — to do about officially urging North Carolina to join a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency in an attempt to overturn its recent gutting of the Clean Air Act. The…
Where Hope Isn’t An Option
There are a few photos of a young woman named Shayla within the pages of Growing Up Fast. In the earliest one, Shayla looks like the post-millennial all-American girl: a young African-American woman with caf-au-lait skin, stylish hair extensions, sexy hoop earrings, and a wide white smile as perfect as a pop princess’. Grinning in…
Money Can’t Buy Me Brains
“Money can’t buy me love,” as Lennon and McCartney put it, but apparently, we’re smack in the midst of an age where it can’t buy you brains or class, either. It’s the new spate of “poor little rich kids” television, where heirs and heiresses “get real” to enlighten the rest of us poor schmucks about…
Arts Agenda
Comedy Bayou Kitchen Extreme Improv. Live improvised comedy created from your suggestions. Visit www.extremeimprov.com for more information. Call for reservations. Fridays: Long Form Fridays, scenes and monologues from a single audience suggestion, $5; Saturdays: improv comedy with audience suggestions, Rated R, $10. 8pm both nights. 1958 E 7th St. 1-866-467-7681. The Comedy Zone Al Ernst…
Holiday Regime Change
Under an obscure provision of the Patriot Act, the Attorney General is empowered to name his choice to serve as Santa Claus each year. For 2003, John Ashcroft has selected Ebenezer Scrooge, recently retired Chief Financial Officer of Halliburton Corp., the same company over which Vice-President Dick Cheney once presided — and which has, truth…
How Sweet It Is
Standing in the middle of Florence’s Ponte Vecchio, I learned the valued position gelato held in my family. When we voted on whether to visit the Uffizi Museum to see the world renowned Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” or return to Vivoli (Gelateria) for yet another helping of their wondrous homemade ice cream, the gelato won…
Parallel Universe
The Porsche’s chrome trim haughtily reflected the late fall sunlight through the third floor window. On the second floor, an all-black Mini-Cooper with tinted windows gazed coolly down at potential drivers in the street below, while at ground level shiny BMWs flaunted their wares at pedestrians walking from the tram stop to Starbucks. Sitting in…
Fail-Safe Holiday Gift Guide
Although I try so hard to shun the consumerist flimflam that Christmas has morphed into, I secretly get giddy when a package looking suspiciously like a wine bottle shows up under the tree. It’s even better when, upon opening, it’s evident the giver carefully considered the bottle before buying it. You, too, could be this…
Dubya’s Game of Calvinball
I’ve been thinking about the classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes and one of its repeating storylines, involving a game called Calvinball. Calvinball had only one permanent rule: No two games of Calvinball could be exactly alike. To ensure this, any player could declare a new rule at any point in the game. All players…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th St., 704-342-0749. All locations have different owners. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$ Azteca, 116 Woodlawn Rd., 704-525-5110; 9709 Independence Blvd., 704-814-9877; 1863 W. Franklin Blvd.…
The Blotter
BEND AT THE KNEES: Police were called to the scenes of two separate thefts that took place within hours of each other, executed by able-bodied strongmen. The items stolen? A massive concrete birdbath and a woman’s wrought iron bench. RICH FOLK BLUES: One man found out that even the wealthy can experience hardship when his…
Posers or Prophets?
Spend time in any city’s local “scene” — clubs, bars, record and even thrift stores — and you’re bound to bump into an indie music snob sooner or later. With apologies to indie snob favorites …And You Will Know Us by The Trail of Dead — a band sufficiently cool enough to have their T-shirts…
News of the Weird
Terrorism pays: The man convicted of blowing up the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people, lives in relative luxury in a private four-room suite in Glasgow’s Barlinnie prison, according to a November report in Britain’s News of the World. Abdelbaset al Megrahi, serving a minimum 27-year sentence, has a color…
Visions of Punk, Jazz and Psychedelia
The Essential Clash Sony Entertainment If ever a group of musicians crossed over well from (arena) stage to screen, it was the Clash. Boldly billed as “the only band that matters” during their Kahoutek-like career, the group’s approach — agitprop gear, militant slogans and incendiary live show — was based as much on post-modern, Foucault-like…
Rhythm Of The Brush
Painter Frank Hobbs’ major intention is to make intriguing marks with oil paint. It’s only a secondary intention if they sometimes turn out to look like highways, landscapes or vehicles. Hobbs, who teaches painting at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, VA, and who currently has an exhibit at Hodges Taylor Gallery, creates works that…
Sit & Spin
The Wrens the Meadowlands Absolutely Kosher Typically, when a band waits seven years between full length releases, expectations tend to, um, well, wane. Okay, more like evaporate entirely. If said band happens to have once been a big name, they might eke out a little more face time from has-been outlets like ET and Rolling…
Get Your Hot Jumbo Penises
Judging by the e-mail ads I’m bombarded with daily, I assume there’s a little-weenie crisis going on in this country, second only to the fat epidemic. If the spam isn’t huckstering weight loss, it’s promising a “bigger member,” bringing to mind a nation of fat people with small dicks, an unappetizing image — not to…
